HARMFUL REMEDIES
Digestive troubles have opened up a lucrative
channel of tiade to doctors, druggists and manu-
facturing chemists. There are three classes of
remedies which find general application—sedatives,
tonics and alkaline mixtures. These drugs are/ one
and all/ harmful They may give a temporary relief,
but in the long run they tend to worsen the disease
and make it incurable/ because they give rise to
the very causes which brought about the trouble.
SEDATIVES
Opium/ bismuth/ osalate of cerium etc./ which
are the sedatives in common use, have an imme-
diate effect of dulling the pain. But this sedative
action is due to their stupefying the nerves of
sensation. These dope-drugs do not do us an atom
of good. On the contrary, their frequent use
deadens and destroys the natural vitality of the
stomach muscles and nerves and corrupts the
digestive juices.
TONICS
The second class of drugs, the tonics are
generally employed after the sedatives or dope-
drugs have lost their power to lessen the pain/ even
temporarily. Such tonics which contain deadly
poisons like arsenic and strychnine are meant for
whipping up the flagging energies of a tired and
overworked stomach- To call it an utter folly is to
put it too mildly. "You would never dream of
administering deadly poisons like arsenic or strych-
nine to a perfectly healthy/ strong man / yet when
a sufferer can barely crawl about and is suffering all
the weakening effects of prolonged failure to digest
and assimilate food, that is the time when
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